If you skipped my article from Friday, October 5, 2018 or simply glazed over my sage advice on how to balance your DFS budget early in the NHL, please go back and read or revisit the piece. Let’s continue our Tuesday streak!

Top Stacks

The Minnesota Wild have the highest implied goal total of the night (3.4) with Vegas and the home team is also the heaviest Vegas favorite (-245). The road weary Vancouver Canucks limp into the game having lost three straight and they finally get to head back to Western Canada after tonight’s contest. During those three losses, the Canucks have allowed an average of 32.67 shots against and 3.33 regulation goals against. Meanwhile, behind excellent goaltending, the Wild have won five of their last seven and should be able to control the flow of the contest, especially on the man advantage. Due to the fact that the Canucks have allowed power play goals against in 7 of their last 8 games, you will focus on Minnesota’ power play unit and second line (my top overall stack of the night) featuring Jason Zucker, Eric Staal, and Mikael Granlund.

Do not overlook a full game stack of the Detroit Red Wings and Ottawa Senators. The Wings have ripped off four wins in a row and the Senators have won two of their last four, while in those wins, the home team has recorded a total of 13 goals. The fact of the matter is that the Senators rank dead last in puck control statistics and are still allowing the most goals against and the most shots against per game. If you are looking to roster the road team, take a look at their second line (Gustav Nyquist – Frans Nielsen – Andreas Athanasiou – Denis Cholowski), which should have the best line matchup against the Senators atrocious defense.

If you are on the home team, I love Ottawa’s 1 and 2 lines. The first line consists of Brady Tkachuk – Colin White – Mark Stone – Thomas Chabot and the second line consists of Ryan Dzingel – Matt Duchene – Drake Batherson. These skaters continue to be underpriced (for the most part), especially on FD. Despite the Wings offensive success, the road team is still allowing the third most shots against to go along with bottom ten CF% numbers.

Other Notable Stacks

The Nashville Predators top line has been faring well even without Viktor Arvidsson. Colton Sissons has looked to have developed solid chemistry with Ryan Johansen and Filip Forsberg. Antti Raanta’s injury hurt the momentum of the Desert Dogs offense and Darcy Kuemper should be between the pipes tonight. Even on the road, I expect the Predators top line to have the more favorable line matchup.

I think you have to have exposure to the Leafs top line in GPPs as they are scorching hot right now, even on the West Coast. Similarly, in the Shark Tank, take a look at San Jose’s top line.

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There were some questions in the Slack chat over the first month of the season about how to find the lines that I list as my top stacks on the Top Shelf Knucklepuck Cheat Sheet. Head over to either DailyFaceoff.com or LeftWingLock.com to see which skaters are on each of a team’s lines and then build your line stacks. For example, if you see that my top stack of the day is “PIT PP1 / 1”, look at one of the two sites listed above and you will see that the top power play unit of the Pittsburgh Penguins consists of Patric Hornqvist – Evgeni Malkin – Sidney Crosby – Kris Letang – Phil Kessel. The team’s top line features Jake Guentzel – Sidney Crosby – Patric Hornqvist. I decided to leave off the players’ names from the line stacks because of the fact that they may change before the game or after the team’s morning skate (if applicable). Both sites I mentioned are updated regularly and typically accurate. If you’re ever lost, just ask questions in our Slack chat.

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Feel free to comment here or post a screenshot or photo on Instagram and remember to tag me @NotTonyM. I am always open to feedback and critique. Just remember, I respond to respect and love in whatever the message is that you want to share. Good luck!